High Speed Broadband In Malaysia Only For The Super Rich?

Well, I could just as easily have titled this post “TimedotCom beats TM to the punch for high speed broadband” but that would have sounded a bit boring, although this is true.  If you have been following news of high speed broadband (I don’t know what speed is defined as “high speed” actually, if anyone knows, do drop a comment!) development in this country, you would have heard of the High Speed Broadband (HSBB) initiative, by Telekom Malaysia (TM) with some participation from the government (well, TM is a government linked corporation, after all!).  Unfortunately, HSBB is at the moment undergoing trials only, in selected affluent areas such as Taman Tun Dr Ismail in KL.  Other areas will follow suit in the second to fourth quarters of this year.  No pricing has been announced.

TimedotCom, the perennial loss making company, and the only one with almost all of its infrastructure in fibre optics, which is many times better than the lousy copper wires which are restricting the growth of broadband in Malaysia in more ways than one, has launched its own high speed wired broadband service in the vicinity of Mont Kiara, yet another one of KL’s high affluence residential areas with its super-duper expensive condos for the rich, and sometimes famous.  I guess it’s easier to wire up a building with many residents rather than pulling fibre for every individual house on every street; plus a ready market of sotongs rich folks who can afford to subscribe to the service helps.

I am guessing that TimedotCom’s pricing for its own high speed broadband service will give us an indication of TM’s own HSBB pricing when it is finally announced.  Check out the pricing plans of TimedotCom’s service here – they offer 3 packages – from 2Mbps to 5Mbps, and all the way up to 10Mbps, best effort.  What best effort means, no one knows, you’ll likely have to sign up a significant portion of your adult life away to find out.  They have this “boost” feature where you can get a speed boost (kind of like “nitro” in those racing simulation games) for a limited time, monthly, and you can also purchase more “boost” should you require more speed to download all those adult entertainment movies faster during those frustrating times of the month when there is no “action”.  Check out the webpage for details.

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So, for 2Mbps, you need to pay RM 149.  RM 199 will get you 5Mbps, while RM 329 will get you 10Mbps.  Not cheap, by any stretch of the imagination, but then sotongs rich people don’t give a hoot what they need to pay for services, as long as they get the service.  Just for comparison sakes, let’s consider what the lucky Singaporeans have to pay for an equivalent 10Mbps of service, which is truly unlimited.  Let’s consider Singtel’s plans:

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So, S$56.90, approximately RM 138 gets you 10Mbps, along with some freebies such as a wireless modem router, etc.  To help you put things in perspective, Singapore’s per capita income is US$39,423 per annum while Malaysia’s is US$ 8,197.  So, Singaporeans earn 5 times as much as we do, but yet only pay the same amount for broadband per month for 10Mbps, while we only get 2Mbps.  Draw your own conclusions.  As my Brit friends would say, BUGGER.

With this kind of pricing, is there hope for high speed broadband growth in Malaysia?  Have your say, as usual, in the comments.  Please self-moderate those comments, I don’t want to be giving over your IP address to the authorities that will land you in the Kamunting detention camp under the ISA!

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